As an entrepreneur I have realized that every moment you will have to choose between the easy and the difficult task. For e.g.
Easy : Call up a friend/ family and talk and talk and talk about how you have a great idea.
Difficult : Walk to a customer, introduce your idea, convince him that your product is a game changer and how he should totally start paying you $$$. You know what you get, right?
I don’t think any start-up person should take pride in saying the following stuff.
- I have an idea
- My friends think this is the next Facebook
- I already have figured out it’s a billion dollar industry
- I know the technology to build and I can finish the coding in a month
- I have spoken to tons of Venture Capitalists and they all like it
Instead whatever looks easy to do, and you think there is no ‘customer touch-points’ – think again if you want to do it.
I was talking to a fellow entrepreneur and he told me he is very comfortable sitting with his laptop and adding more features to his B2B service. STOP! – Is what told him.
Since your computer doesn’t
- Shout at you,
- Says come back tomorrow,
- Refuses to listen to you for 5 min
you are quite comfortable spending time with the machine.
One quality as an entrepreneur you have to build is the ability to sell.
- Team members : to build a great team
- Pilot customer : For Market Validation
- Investors : To raise money
- More customers : For IPO
It’s like public speaking without having a great sppech writer for you. So don’t waste your time with easy stuff. Instead build easy solutions to be adopted for real world problems and do the most difficult task : sell, sell and sell.
After all, selling is what generate jobs, isn’t it?
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulamarttila/5592059984/
